223. As members of one body, Catholics and Lutherans remember together the events of the Reformation that led to the reality that thereafter they lived in divided communities even though they still belonged to one body. That is an impossible possibility and the source of great pain. Because they belong to one body, Catholics and Lutherans struggle in the face of their division toward the full catholicity of the church.

Try and wrap your brain around that. Nothing against Lutherans personally, God bless ’em. Used to be one myself. But no self-respecting Lutheran would ever sign off on this rubbish. Catholics and Lutherans, for all our differences, used to understand each other. It seems that modern ecumenism has deep-sixed the very idea of rational understanding. Christopher Ferrara and Louis Verrecchio offer some pointed commentary:

Speaking of rational understanding, the renowned Thomist Dr. Edward Feser – who really needs to be teaching in a Catholic seminary – recently visited Thomas Aquinas College where he gave an outstanding lecture on “What We Owe The New Atheists”. It’s long but it’s definitely worth your time.

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The Maestro has two important reflections up this week: Liturgy and Legislation, which seeks to recover the proper Catholic attitude toward liturgy; and some perspicacious thoughts on The SSPX, wherein he defends their general position but is also frank about what he perceives as their limitations.

Although the main focus of his research is family names, Clark has looked at first names too – specifically, the names of 14,449 freshmen students attending the elite University of Oxford between 2008-2013. By contrasting the incidence of first names in the Oxford sample with their incidence among the general population (of the same age), he calculated the probability, relative to average, that a person given a particular name would go to Oxford. (For the purposes of his research he excluded students with non-English or Welsh surnames.)

He notes that there are more than three times as many Eleanors at Oxford than we might expect, given the frequency of that first name among girls in the general population, and Peters, Simons and Annas are not far behind. Conversely, there is less than a 30th of the expected number of Jades and an even smaller proportion of Paiges and Shannons. An Eleanor is 100 times more likely to go to Oxford than a Jade.

I don’t recall the name “William” in the article, but it sounds like one of those good old standards. You should be a Duke or at least a Count today. The name ranks high in my book: I gave it as a middle name to one of my sons.

About

I’m a married father of six, a traditional Catholic, and a fourth-generation Californian living in Chico. In this space you can expect commentary on religion, culture, politics, local history, and things of personal interest. The title of this weblog is an allusion to an obscure bit of Chico history linking the forest in our neighborhood to the mystical Sherwood Forest of merrie olde England. I can be reached by e-mail at: jeff dot culbreath at gmail dot com.

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"If a conservative order is indeed to return, we ought to know the tradition which is attached to it, so that we may rebuild society; if it is not to be restored, still we ought to understand conservative ideas so that we may rake from the ashes what scorched fragments of civilizations escape the conflagration of unchecked will and appetite."
- Russell Kirk